Kingdom of God: Past, Present or Future?

By Brian Johnston

The Kingdom of God is a concept found throughout the Bible but is not always easy to grasp.  Jesus said that the kingdom of God was at hand - what did he mean by that - was it not at hand before and would it not be at hand in the future?  What is the Kingdom of God today and who is a part of it?

Brian Johnston deals with this important topic in his usual accessible wa by exploring, the conditional kingdom, the coming kingdom, the contemporary kingdom and the consumate kingdom

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hayes Press
• Release date: Nov 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386450153

Brian Johnston

Born and educated in Scotland, Brian worked as a government scientist until God called him into full-time Christian ministry on behalf of the Churches of God (www.churchesofgod.info). His voice has been heard on Search For Truth radio broadcasts for over 30 years (visit www.searchfortruth.podbean.com) during which time he has been an itinerant Bible teacher throughout the UK and Canada. His evangelical and missionary work outside the UK is primarily in Belgium and The Philippines. He is married to Rosemary, with a son and daughter.

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Table of Contents

Kingdom of God: Past, Present or Future?

1. THE CONDITIONAL KINGDOM

2. THE COMING KINGDOM

3. THE CONTEMPORARY KINGDOM

4. THE CONSUMMATE KINGDOM

Further Reading: 8 Amazing Privileges of God's People: A Bible Study of Romans 9:4-5

Also By Brian Johnston

About the Author

About the Publisher

The Kingdom of God – Past, Present or Future?

Copyright © 2012 Brian Johnston

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, without the written permission of Hayes Press.

Published by:

HAYES PRESS CHRISTIAN PUBLISHERS

The Barn, Flaxlands

Royal Wootton Bassett

Swindon, SN4 8DY

United Kingdom

www.hayespress.org

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, the New King James Version® (NKJV®). Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson, Inc.  Used by permission. All rights reserved." Scriptures marked NIV are from New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scriptures marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.

Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Hymns taken from Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, published by Hayes Press.

1. THE CONDITIONAL KINGDOM

We all love a conspiracy theory, or at least many people seem to. We hear of governments being accused of master-minding terrorist strikes against themselves and royalty being accused of contriving a fatal accident. But there’s a greater conspiracy theory abroad than any misconceived human rumour! God is planning to remove all worldly power and to establish his own rule - and Christians are in on this! First Corinthians 15:24 says, "Then comes the end ... when [Christ] delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power."

With those words, Paul presents to us a snapshot of God’s kingdom as it will be some time after the return of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament prophets had written about this long ago, of course, when they predicted a Messiah ruling in glory, finally accepted by Israel. With the eye of faith, godly Israelites at the time of Christ’s birth, looked ahead towards this time of Messiah’s earthly rule. Typical among them was: "a man from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of God ... [he was the man who] ... went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus" (Luke 23:50-52).

Such a sense of anticipation, as we’ve said, had been built up from prophecies like Daniel’s when he wrote of how: "one like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory